


Just Two Queer Kids From Brooklyn

by Lasgalendil



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Sarah Rogers, Bessie Smith, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes-centric, Captain America: The First Avenger, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gladys Bentley, M/M, Panic Attacks, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Queer Steve Rogers, Queer Themes, Sexual Assault, Slurs, harlem renaissance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:13:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8052373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: Prohibition. Depression. Persecution. ...it's all just the price of growin' up. You make it out alive, you're one of the lucky ones.





	Just Two Queer Kids From Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for parent/child domestic violence, sexual assault, and homophobia.

**1923**

Bucky Barnes is six years old. He doesn’t know what queer means.  
  
It’s just—Steve. He’s wanted to marry Steve ever since he learned what marrying was, living together, going to pictures, just you and your best pal, takin’ care of each other forever and ever. Sounds swell. He tells his ma, and she swats him across the face.  
  
He’s not queer, she tells him. He’s a good boy from a good home. He ain’t no invert. She didn’t raise him like that.  
  
He’s not queer. He ain’t. His ma says he ain't and he can't…an’ queer folk can’t get married, no how. So Buck can't be queer. 'Cause he's gonna marry Steve.

**1934**

He’s not queer.  
  
He’s not. It’s just—Steve (There’ve been others, of course, just pals helping each other out with fingers, fucking between the legs, fumbling around in the dark. But it was practice, wasn’t it? For girls. For later. For getting married, settling down, having kids. Enjoying their youth while it lasted.). But he gets with his first girl, gets past all that neckin’ and gropin' into somethin' more, somethin' else and it just…fizzles. Like wet fireworks on the fourth of July. He comes alright, and she comes, too. Takes some work on his part, but she’s sweaty and smilin’ when it’s all over but it ain’t—  
  
It ain’t nothin’ _special_ ,’s all. He hits the dockyards on the way home, lets a chickenhawk pick him up and sucks him off and hell, _that’s_ how it’s supposed to be. He comes home smelling like cigarettes and whiskey, fucked five ways to Sunday, smellin’ like another man’s come and some strange woman’s cunt.  

Steve’s waiting up for him. Damn near breaks his heart.

  
  
**1935**

He’s queer. But he’s not a fairy—not some queen.  
  
He’s not. It’s just—Steve. There’s men’s clothes and dame’s clothes, and why someone like Steve would want to dress up in lipstick and heels and fucking stockings and be a queen, be a fairy, he has no idea. Steve’s not. Not that. He’s not. He’s the toughest little sumbitch to ever walk the streets of Brooklyn. Manliest man Bucky’d ever met. And he’s handsome, handsome as ever, so what if his back’s a bit bent and his chin’s a bit weak, he’s got the bluest eyes, the kindest smile, more guts than sense, brave, bull-headed motherfucker. And Buck's said—over and over again he's said—he didn’t need him to be some girl, some dame, he liked him fine just the way he was, that Steve looked good in suspenders and a suit or just wearin’ one of Buck's too-big shirts or hell just nothin’ at all. But Steve said he liked it. Said it made him feel beautiful. Special. So it was fine and swell for Steve, but it wasn’t as if Buck was gonna—  
  
Try it, Steve asks him one night. For me. Just try.

So Buck feels like a fool, puts on silk stockings and lipstick and polish—spends a damned week’s worth of rent—just to get all dolled up, and Steve—? Steve fucks him standing, sitting, stretching, fucks him against the bed and the walls and the damned door fucks him within an inch of his damned life and afterwords they clean up, go out on the fire escape, have a smoke, him a Lucky and Steve one of his asthma cigarettes and they just grin like stupid kids. Then they get a place near St. George Hotel, in the tenements. The first night there they fuck like a proper married couple in their new bed, and don't care if the neighbors hear em, then they go out on the fire escape, they kiss and neck and make time a little more, don’t give a damn who sees.  
  
He’s queer. He’s a queen. Or a king. Hell, it don’t really matter. He and Steve are flexible that way. He likes his whiskey and boxing and smoking cigarettes—he’ll take Lucky Strikes, Chesterfield, and Marlboro. Says he carries ‘em around for the dames but Steve that little shit just smirks, like he knows better. Ain’t nothing wrong with likin’ ‘em. Who says they’re just for dames, anyhow. Besides, Buck, Steve says, it ain’t like either of us is ever bein’ a girl. Even with lipstick and panties. We’re just bein’ us. That’s all.  
  
That’s Stevie Rogers, though. Don’t see nothin’ wrong with it. Optimistic little shit. Buck says he would see the world that way, ‘cause he’s color-blind, and Steve chases him all ‘round their little apartment, tackles him to the bed, holds his wrists above his head and fucks him all rough and hot, then they’re kissin’ sweet, and they spend the whole damn night tangled up in each other and he don’t regret it come dawn. Not even if he’s gotta work.

 

**1936**

  
  
He’s a queer. He’s a queen when it suits him or Steve's fancy. He’s whatever the fuck he wants to be. But he’s—he’s not one of _them_ types.

Sometimes it’s Steve. Sometimes it’s someone else. Sometimes it’s Steve and someone else watchin’. Sometimes it’s Steve and someone else all at the same time. Steve’d do more if it were up to him, but three’s already a crowd, and Buck’s a bit shy. Then they’re over in Harlem at this Blues club like two real swells, listenin’ to Bessie Smith and Gladys Bentley, and this real smooth talkin’ tom and his fella come up to them all slick and they hit if off, spend half the night drinkin’ and dancin’ and somehow all wind up in bed back at their place, and Buck don’t mind a damn bit. After that things get a bit excitin’, and they go to bars and bath houses with their new fellas and their friends. And what’s the harm in makin’ time or fuckin’ with a few pals, anyways? Long as Steve says so. Long as Buck agrees. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with watchin’ your man have a bit of fun, is all. Not when he's comin' home to you, an' you're comin' home to him.

 

**1937**

  
They’re queer. And they ain’t ashamed. But they are afraid. They’re out drinkin’ and dancin’, and the place gets raided, some cops gets their hands on Steve, damnit, they can’t have Steve he’s gonna be a senator, gonna be president someday he can’t have a sodomy charge it ain’t right it ain’t fair Buck tells ‘em, what do you want, just tell me what you want I’ll do anything, anything, just let him go—  
  
And _anything_ it turns out, is depraved and disgusting and Buck’s been with quite a few fellas and he's been a queer all his damned life but he’s never been a _whore_ before, and he’s terrified half outta his damn mind ‘cause these guys, these bastards ain't just fucking and choking him they're beating him and oh fuck oh shit they ain’t gonna stop they’re gonna kill him they’re gonna kill Steve and Steve’s screamin’ and cryin’ and cussin’ up a storm with his little hands cuffed up behind his back and Buck’s seein’ black when this old bulldyker shows up, clocks the cop over the head with a bowling pin and there’s blood and brains and Steve’s broke free and she tells them both to get the hell outta there—  
  
They’re home they’re alive they’re together but they’re not safe. Never safe. Now a man—hell, a _cop_ —is dead, and they’re not safe they’ll never be safe—  
  
And breathe, Buck. Just breathe, Steve says. And they cry and they kiss and they cuddle and a man is dead, Buck says. A man is dead.  
  
He wasn’t a nice man, Steve says. And it was either him or us.  So they leave it like that.  
  
They look for the woman, but they never find her. Their unlikely savior. Buck thinks she must’ve skipped town, seein' as she killed a cop an’ all. Steve ain’t so sure. His ma was a suffragette, taught and trained by Edith Garrud herself. And he’s Catholic, too, thinks angels come in all shapes and disguises.  
  
Angels don’t look like that, Buck says.

Bible says be not afraid, Steve argues back. And she was terrifying.

Ain't your Bible got somethin' to say about Sodom and Gomorrah? Buck says.

My Bible's got David and Jonathan, Steve tells him. And the Disciple Jesus loved.

 

**1941**

 

They're queer. And they ain't ashamed. But they're afraid. At least Buck is. The the news comes during Steve's art class, and Buck's sitting up there buckass nude tryin' to keep the tears from falling. Steve paints it all in rich, dark charcoal. Bastard thinks it's beautiful.

Buck _hates_ that picture. There's a war on, now. An' they're all a part of it. He ain't volunteering, but there's a draft. And someday soon their number's gonna be up.

 

**1942**

 

They're queer. And they ain't ashamed. Buck's number comes, all his nightmares come to life in one little envelope. And it's simple, really: Just tell the truth.

He's poked and prodded, called a fine specimen. They ask, and Buck says yes. Yes he is, and he's unashamed.

The Doc says so is he. An' it's no reason a fella like him can't serve.

In a way he's happy. In a way he's incensed. It ain't fair, it ain't right, it ain't just, it ain't what he wanted...but either way, Buck's number's up.

 

**1943**

  
They’re queer. And they ain't ashamed, but they sure ain't together, either. A war of worlds tears ‘em apart, and Buck’s dyin’ on a table in Austria when Erskine’s serum brings ‘em back together.  
  
An' Steve's bigger. He's taller an' stronger an' his lungs and heart sound healthy as a horse. What'd you sell, Buck asks. Your soul?

I’d die for you, this strange Steve says. I'd kill for you. I'd go to fucking hell for you. And if you couldn't leave, Christ, sweetheart, I'd stay and burn right there with you.

And Buck? Buck believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post:
> 
> why is it that in all pre-serum steve/bucky fics, they’re terrified of being associated with the “sissies,” and the “fairies.” i have read the sentence “i ain’t no fairy” in like four fics minimum. 
> 
> u know what would be cuter? bucky and steve being connected to the community. going to gay bathhouses and bars. i want them to be friends with lesbians like sandy kern. i want them going to drag balls in greenwich village and harlem. i want them running from police raids. bucky tearing steve away from a fight because the last thing he needs is for his boyfriend to get arrested for sodomy.
> 
> when they’re overseas i want the howling commandos to know and not give a fuck. i want peggy to know. i want steve contemplating the idea of bisexuality before he even knows the word. i want him to rub shoulders with queer heroes like helen harder. 
> 
> why is it that in every fic ever steve wakes up in 2012 and he’s like “whoa look at these lgbt communities i’ve never heard of such a thing” when he could be like “hell yeaH hell fucking YEAH let me tell you a story of this one time a cop tried to beat the shit out of me in 1939 and a drag queen saved my ass before bucky even could" 
> 
> —nonbinarybuckybarnes


End file.
